The Longest Night (7 page)

Nat paused, watching him. She could still make light of this if she were careful. She tried to imitate Richards in a mocking baritone. “ ‘I only drink old-fashioneds,' he said. ‘Can I make you a Moscow mule?' he said. ‘You have to drink it out of a tin cup. Have you seen my car, it's a new Cadillac Coupe de Ville? Look at my shoes, they're alligator Norwegians by Stetson.' Whatever that means!” She smiled at him.

“It was embarrassing,” Paul said, as if to press on past the threat of Nat's peace offering, “to see him pawing all over you—”

“He wasn't pawing all over me.”

“As if I weren't even there.”

“I wouldn't let him ‘paw' all over me whether you were there or not.”

“He looked at you the whole night.”

“He was
drunk,
” she said.

“Fine,” Paul said, nodding. “Fine, he was drunk. But you could have put space between the two of you. You could have come over and sat by me.”

“I just sat where my name card was. It said, ‘Mrs. Collier.' He came and sat beside
me
.”

“Is the name card some kind of higher authority?”

“I couldn't offend Mrs. Richards; she put it there. And if he sat down and I instantly got up and moved away, transplanting someone else's name card—that would have caused a scene.”

Paul looked away. “You two caused a scene as it was,” he said.

She could feel the wall he was trying to build up; it was her job to knock it down while it was still in progress. She threw caution to the wind, took his hand in two of her own, kneading it. Laced her fingers through his larger, knobby knuckles and tried to get him to look her in the eye. “Listen,” she said. “I'm sorry. I didn't know he was going to get that…sloppy. I didn't want to be anywhere near him.”

“And why did you say that thing about the
little, tiny CR-1
? You made it sound like I come home and tell you how small and meaningless it is.”

He in fact had done this, the first day, but Nat knew now was not the time to insist. “I'm so sorry about that. I was just trying to smooth things over after Mr. Harbaugh's outburst, and I put my foot in my mouth.”

“It wasn't your job to smooth things over. Let him be a fool; keep your own composure.”

“It's an impulse with women—we hate to see men embarrass themselves. I can't explain it. Please don't be mad at me.”

“I'm not.”

“Good,” she said quietly. She lifted a hand and brushed it over the top of his head, feeling his short, bristly hair. She had never known him outside the army and had no idea what his hair was like if it weren't shaved to his head. Was it thick? Would it curl? She'd seen it only this way, dark and stiff as a currycomb.

“I think I made a mistake,” he said. “Coming here. Switching jobs. Moving you and the girls to the middle of nowhere.”

“It's not the middle of nowhere. There's a new J.C. Penney's.”

“And nothing else for a hundred miles,” he said.

She shrugged. This was true. Despite its weak aspirations toward suburban life, Idaho Falls remained mostly open space, flatness, hardened lava, and vultures that circled over the road like the last thing you might ever see.

“We'll be fine,” she said. “It's a two-year tour. Then you can go someplace else if you like.”

His eyes darted her way. “You mean
we
can go someplace else.”

“Yes. That's what I meant.”

“All right.” He closed his eyes. “This whole tour just isn't turning out like I expected. I thought—I thought everything would be better than it is. The people, the reactor. I was kind of looking forward to it, and now I feel like if we can just survive this tour and make it out of here, that'll be enough.”

Nat felt a squeeze of anxiety. “You don't mean what Mr. Harbaugh was saying, do you—about the reactor?”

“It's nothing for you to worry about.”

“Well, was he telling the truth?”

Paul smiled grimly. “The reactor's not exactly newfangled, I'll give him that. And the leadership is not…attentive.”

“Paul, I don't want to hear that! It makes me nervous.”

“We'll make it work. We always do. Certainly won't help anything if you worry.”

“Well, now I
am
going to worry.”

“We can make it two years.”

She nodded.

“Just help me out by keeping away from my boss, all right?” he said.

“You don't need to worry about
that
.”

He studied her in that opaque way he had. Then she saw a flicker of fondness work through his eyes, the softening that meant thank God, she had officially won. No going back now; no more grudge. She had punched through the wall even as he tried to build it.

He smiled at her and said, “You're a lot of work for me, you know.”

This was how
she
felt, but she didn't want to get into it. She smiled and got to her knees, kissing him. “Am I worth it?” she asked.

His kiss was a good enough answer. She slid onto his lap and he reached one hand behind her head to unclip her hair; it fell around their faces like a curtain. With a quiet whisk of fabric he pulled her cotton belt from its loops and started in on the buttons down the front, cursing happily because there were quite a few. The cloak of her hair gave a blind-like illusion of shelter but of course they were on the patio in their flat backyard, which looked innocently out onto the other flat backyards, where presumably neighbors did not take off all their clothes and roll around on early summer nights.

“People can see us,” Paul said.

“Where?” she asked, looking around. “There's no one out here. Everyone's asleep.”

“Let's hope so,” he said. He stared at her a moment and then laughed. She leaned back, her arms around his neck, drinking it in. She loved when Paul was happy. She hadn't truly realized, until they were married and living together, what a sealed-up person he was. He could spend hours in a silent house without turning on the radio or asking a question. But his reserve had always made her feel as if he were her hidden treasure, strange and rare: the secret sign, the cracked geode. Whatever strange majesty was in him was known to her alone.

There was a small rustle somewhere and he paused, but Nat kept him on track with a quick pop of the clasps at the back of her bra. She always undid these for him; poor soul, each time it was as if he had never encountered such a web of mystery.

It was an unforeseen thrill to be naked to the wind from the waist up, and she found herself energized, helping his shirt over his head, liberating him from his slacks. He seemed nearly dazed with trepidation and delight.

“Am I worth it?” she said again. “Say I am or I'm going to run out across that yard right now.” Before he could answer she hopped to her feet, pulled her dress and panties down around her ankles, and looped them over his shoulders like a boxer's towel, yanking them in so he'd kiss her. He did. Then he gaped at her, which was exactly what she wanted. The concrete patio and then the cool, wet grass passed under her feet, and she trotted out to the picket fence, tagged it, and sauntered back. She felt lithe and lovely in the moonlight. She knew she was all he wanted to see. Her hair swayed down her back and she put a little wiggle in her step, laughing, and he was laughing, too, from where he crouched on the patio, her underpants draped jauntily over his shoulder. He seemed not to realize they were there.

“Get down here, Natalie Collier,” he said, pulling her to the cement. She could feel the happiness throbbing from him and the fact that she had put it there, that she could create such fulfillment in another person, was intoxicating. Paul shushed her, gripping the back of her head, and when they were done she ran her fingers up his arm, over and over, from his elbow to the smoothness of his shoulder, where her teeth had left a small wreath. His heart beat right into her chest.

W
HEN
N
AT AWOKE,
pale bars of light striped the carpet near her face. She sat up, her ribs aching from another night on the floor. Out the back window to the yard she could see the grayish morning sky, the watery efforts of the sun. It was early. Her daughters' feet shuffled just outside the bedroom door, and she knew they'd burst in any moment if she didn't get to them first.

Paul lay beside her, looking somehow both childlike and masculine in his sleep: shorn army hair and angular face, utterly peaceful expression. She leaned over and kissed him, pulled the blanket up to his shoulders, and got to her feet. Her bra sat upright on the floor as if inhabited by an invisible woman. She couldn't find last night's underpants so she fished a new pair from her dresser and stepped into them.

The girls' whispers were gaining in volume. When she opened the door they toppled into the room, looking startled for a moment and then grinning. “Oh!” Sam said with delight, as if her mother were stopping in unexpectedly for tea. “Oh, good
mor
ning!”

“Good morning,” Nat whispered, smiling. Sam's hair was sleep-frayed out around her head and ratted into a firm, walnut-sized nest in the back.

After bread with peanut butter and some apple slices and a game of “I Spy” in their box-filled kitchen, it was still only seven
A.M.
Nat wanted to let Paul sleep in: because he had driven so far and then worked for the past few weeks, but also in a wifely indulgence she always allowed him after lovemaking, as if the strain of her seduction weakened him and he needed, like Samson, to sleep his way back into strength.

“Can we go for a walk?” Sam asked. Her cheeks glistened with peanut butter and bread crumbs; she looked like she'd been smeared with suet and set out for birds in cold weather.

“Sure,” Nat said, wiping Sam's face and then Liddie's. She got the girls dressed, tried to wet Sam's hair down flat, and led them out into the cool morning air.

The neighborhood was quiet; only crows and cats were out. They made slow progress, Sam hopping ahead and Liddie toddling behind, Nat always somewhere in the middle. The soles of the girls' Mary Janes made little gritty skips on the pavement.

Theirs was a modest neighborhood, clapboard prewar houses with pointed roofs, small windows, milk-delivery boxes built into the wall near the front doors. Each house was about eight hundred square feet—smaller than her parents' home had been, but perfectly comfortable. At that moment, on the cusp of summer, with the street still fresh and the girls not arguing and her love for Paul snuggled happily in the back of her mind, she felt they could do fine in this new place.

They wandered along several blocks and she realized that they were nearing the Richardses' neighborhood. Here the houses were changing: Instead of humble little triangles they were newer, ranch style, each with a hedge and one rosebush planted just to the right of the front door. Everything felt a little cleaner, a little classier, and it occurred to Nat that she'd walked out her front door in the dress she'd slept in, looking like an unmade bed.

“Girls,” she said, “maybe we'll walk to the end of this block and then turn back.”

“Aw, Mama,” said Sam.

Nat hadn't thought back to the previous night's party since she'd awoken and now, seeing the Richardses' well-kept white house on the corner, she found it strange that she'd been there just hours ago in this same dress, nervous, her hair up, pearls heavy on her neck, Paul nursing his fatigue and his frustrations as if they were hard candies, her holding that stupid regrettable meatloaf. She was relieved that there was a different feeling between her and Paul now, the old feeling, and she hoped it would hold. It made her care less about Master Sergeant Richards hanging boozily in her face, pawing at her collar (Paul was right; he had pawed) or whether Jeannie Richards thought she was plain and friendless.

Cars had begun to pass by on the road, here and there. A line of four boys filed into a sedan at the end of the street while their father looked on. Nat guessed it must be about eight o'clock. The day stretched endlessly before them. She was just about to turn the girls around when she heard a commotion.

“What's that, Mama?” Samantha asked.

“Sam, shh,” she said.

What Nat heard were the deep, irregular shouts of a man's voice. She swiveled her head, trying to tell where it was coming from—inside one of the houses, she thought. There was something almost comical about a muffled male voice; it was like someone hollering into a folded towel and expecting to be taken seriously.

Then she heard a woman, yelling in return, words staccato with rage. After a moment, studying the white house in front of her, she recognized the voices as those of Mitch and Jeannie Richards.

“Girls, we should go,” she said, but a crude curiosity rooted her to the spot. Before she could spare herself by leaving, the front door flew open and Jeannie herself stormed out.

If Jeannie Richards had looked beautiful at the party last night, then this morning she was stunning. Her red hair caught the sunlight like a shiny penny, and she wore a dress so gleaming white that she seemed to not only reflect light but also give off her own. Everything but her hair glowed white: high white heels, a small hat with half netting and a smattering of pearls, white wrist-length gloves.

Jeannie marched down the walk and Mitch, unbelievably, blundered right out the door after her. He was wearing the same collared shirt from the night before, half-untucked; rumpled dress slacks, and socks. His bedroom dishevelment on this celibate, decorous street was what alarmed Nat most.

There was nothing Nat could do now; she was ten feet from these people. To take off scuttling up the street would attract their attention; crouching behind a shrub would look ludicrous and incriminating if they did catch sight of her. So she stood, hoping there might be some way that, in the heat of this apparent argument, they missed her.